Vietnam Center & Archive News and Updates

Tet, the Vietnamese New Year
Friday, February 4th
3:00-5:00 pm
The International Cultural Center’s Hall of Nations, Texas Tech University Campus

This is a free event open to the public.

Traditional Vietnamese food will be served. A special presentation will be given by the Vietnamese Student Association at Texas Tech. Please join us and learn more about the rich heritage and culture that makes Vietnam so remarkable.

February 3, 2011 ushers in the Lunar Year of the Cat. In Vietnam, one of 12 animals of the zodiac represents each year. The cat symbolizes sensitivity, gentleness and kindness. It is said that people born in the year of the cat are compassionate, ambitious and sentimental, but they are often very vulnerable to opportunistic and unscrupulous people.

The Vietnamese people regard Tet as their most important holiday. Food preparation for Tet is very time consuming and often requires days of cooking and, prior to the celebrations, people clean, paint, and decorate their homes. People avoid cleaning during Tet so that good luck will not be “swept away.”

We hope you will be able to join us on February 4, 2011 as we celebrate this special event!

The registration form for the Vietnam Center’s upcoming Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium is now available online. Registration form and payment must be received by March 1st, 2011. Please note that due to hotel catering requirements, late and onsite registration will not include any meals.

The Summer/Fall issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center newsletter is available for download on our website. Articles include information about the Texas Tech student trip to Southeast Asia, a call for papers for our Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium, an update on the Graffiti Project, and more.

If you would like to receive a full color printed version of this newsletter in your mailbox, please consider becoming a friend of the Vietnam Center. Membership information can be found at this link.

The Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium will take place on March 10-12, 2011, and will be held at the brand new Overton Hotel and Convention Center in Lubbock, Texas.

Vietnam Center symposia are open to presentations that examine any and all aspects of the United States involvement in Southeast Asia. This includes activities before, during, and after the war in Vietnam. Papers can examine any aspect of the experience to include early interaction and diplomacy, activities in theater during the war, the international dimensions of the war for all sides involved, activities in the US and elsewhere in support of or in opposition to the war, postwar issues, etc.

We encourage anyone interested in presenting a paper to submit a one page proposal and a short CV for consideration. As always, graduate students are highly encouraged to submit proposals. Please format proposals to resemble an abstract to include the author’s name, title/affiliation, and contact information, along with proposed title, thesis/purpose, and main points. Please limit proposal length to a single page and submit them electronically to VietnamCenterConference@ttu.edu. If you make an email submission but do not receive notification of receipt within seven days, please call 806-742-3742 and ask for Steve Maxner, Ph.D., Director, Vietnam Center and Archive.

The Vietnam Center and Archive received a collection of artifacts and photographs from world-renowned anthropologist Gerald Hickey. Items donated include textiles, smoking pipes, swords and wood carvings from Montagnard tribes Dr. Hickey worked with in Vietnam from 1950s-1970s. Please click here for the official press release.

Photo caption: Y Bham Enoul, Rhade leader and founder of FULRO (United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races). FULRO was an organization in Vietnam and Cambodia that was established to fight for Montagnard autonomy within those nations. This photo is just one of many donated by Dr. Hickey.

The Spring 2010 issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center newsletter is now available for download here. Articles include a recap of the 2010 Conference on Counterinsurgency from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, an update from the Oral History Project, a call for papers for our upcoming symposium, and much more. You can also view and download all previous issues of the newsletter at this link.

A Colloquium on United States National Security Policy and Military Strategy: Understanding the Environment for Contemporary Warfare

Sponsored by the Vietnam Center and Archive and Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University and The Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College

September 15-16, 2010

The Overton Hotel and Convention Center, Lubbock, TX

The goal of this academic colloquium is to discuss what is one of the most serious and difficult problems facing those responsible for US National Security Policy and Military Strategy, that is, how best to understand contemporary warfare and how best to combat global terrorism. The current struggle is not traditional in that the enemy is not a nation-state that has mobilized its military forces and civilian population against the US, demanding assessments of the appropriate levels and uses of force and the deployment and maneuver of military force. Rather, the war against terrorist networks can be viewed as a form of insurgency where policy makers and the military face well organized but loosely connected groups bent on inflicting property, human, and economic damage at any opportunity. The complexity of fighting such enemies requires policy makers and military strategists to address several essential questions so that US policy and strategy not only match but work together in a way that will allow for the ultimate defeat of those who use terror as their principal means of goal achievement.

Call for Papers:

We seek paper and panel proposals that will address such questions and will focus on such important issues as whether US national security policy is based on an accurate conceptualization of terrorism as a threat, whether policies and strategies need to be reassessed with respect to how we are addressing these threats, and what role will coalitions and alliances play in helping political and military leaders develop and implement effective policies and strategies. We welcome and look forward to a range of proposals that examine these issues using qualitative, quantitative, and historical methodologies and analysis.

•Paper proposals: Half page proposal with short (two page) CV

•Panel proposals: Full page proposal with short (two page) CVs for speakers

The Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium will take place on March 10-12, 2011, and will be held at the brand new Overton Hotel and Convention Center in Lubbock, Texas.

Vietnam Center symposia are open to presentations that examine any and all aspects of the United States involvement in Southeast Asia. This includes activities before, during, and after the war in Vietnam. Papers can examine any aspect of the experience to include early interaction and diplomacy, events and activities during the war to include military operations, humanitarian relief efforts, civic action and pacification, thematic issues to include social, political, cultural, and economic, the international dimensions of the war for all sides involved, activities in the US and elsewhere in support of or in opposition to the war, postwar issues, etc.

We encourage anyone interested in presenting a research paper to submit a one page proposal and a short CV for consideration. We also welcome panel proposals that include all speakers and a moderator. As always, graduate students are highly encouraged to submit proposals. Please format proposals to resemble an abstract to include the author’s name, title/affiliation, and contact information, along with proposed title, thesis/purpose, and main points. Please limit paper proposal length to a single page. For panel proposals, please limit each paper proposal within the panel to a single page. Submit all proposals electronically to VietnamCenterConference@ttu.edu. If you make an email submission but do not receive notification of receipt within seven days, please call 806-742-3742 and ask for Steve Maxner, Ph.D., Director, Vietnam Center and Archive.

The videos currently on our channel are unique, historical films from our collections and include:

-Film of U.S. soldiers spraying Agent Orange without protective equipment

-Scenes from the inauguration of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu

-Military Sentry Dog training

-Scenes from markets and villages in Southeast Asia during the war

-Film of an air show and military equipment

We hope that displaying our videos on YouTube will expose a larger audience to our vast collection of moving images concerning the Vietnam War. More videos will be added in the future so please check back periodically.

A sample of the old newsletter design (left) and the current one (right).

The Friends of the Vietnam Center newsletter is a quarterly, high quality, full color, award winning newsletter that provides news and updates about the Vietnam Center and Archive. Articles include exclusive in-depth interviews with collection donors and archive staff, information about our conferences and symposia, details about our diverse materials and how they are being used, updates on every aspect of our project, and much more.

The next issue of our newsletter will be released in May 2010. If you would like to receive a printed copy of Friends in your mailbox, please consider joining our membership program. The membership form can be found on this page: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/